Online availability of school inspection reports: FOI release

Information request and response under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.


FOI reference: FOI/17/02285
Date received: 9 October 2017
Date responded: 6 November 2017

Information requested

  1. Confirmation of who authorised the decision to delete school inspection reports dated prior to April 2008, and when this authorisation was given.

  2. Confirmation of who authorised the decision to make school inspection reports more than 5 years old no longer available to the public online, and when this authorisation was given.

  3. All communication regarding the decision to permanently delete reports dated prior to April 2008, as confirmed in the article link: The Herald 30th September 2017

  4. All communication regarding the decisions around which school inspection reports are available to the public online (date range: Jan 2014 – present).

Response

1. Education Scotland has not taken a decision to delete inspection reports prior to 2008. The most recent inspection reports for establishments are held on file. However, Education Scotland has made the decision to remove school inspection reports more than five years old from the website. Education Scotland does not hold information in relation to the deletion of inspection reports prior to April 2008 because these reports have not been deleted. This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that Education Scotland does not have the information you have requested.

2. The decision was made in February 2017 by Education Scotland's senior managers who have responsibility for inspection.

3. See response to Q1.

4. Please find attached (Appendix A) documents regarding the decisions around which school inspection reports are available to the public online.

However, while our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information requested because of an exemption under section 38(1)(b), personal information, of FOISA applies to some of the information requested.

The reason why this exemption applies is explained below.

Some information from emails has been redacted as the information is out of scope and does not relate to your request.

Reasons for not providing information

Section 38(1)(b) - personal information.

An exemption under section 38(1)(b) of FOISA (personal information) applies to some of the information requested because it is personal data of a third party, e.g. names/contact details of individuals, and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Schedule 1 to the Data Protection Act 1998.

This exemption is not subject to the 'public interest test', so we are not required to consider if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses

Contact

Please quote the FOI reference

Central Enquiry Unit
Email: ceu@gov.scot
Phone: 0300 244 4000

The Scottish Government
St Andrew's House
Regent Road
Edinburgh
EH1 3DG

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